The druidess real form lay motionless, cold, and helpless in the bed inside the Devilclaw inn. Keleldon had been sure to dose her with a strong enough sedative to knock her out until she could be dealt with. She had been raving to her friends, unable to recognize common, Draenei, or humans. Her mind was lost in the abyss that was her shelter, her only hope, her only place of peace and solitude.
Her past had become like a comfortable cloak to her, something she clung to desperately in times of pain, and something that sheltered her from the truth of things. She clung to the objects that made her whole, the objects which defined her. The ring that never left her hand, the intricate lynx and stag chasing each other across the ironwood ornament. The druidess saw serenity and calm in the pictures and thoughts that clouded her mind, hid her from the truth of the situation.
Inside the endless maze of her own mind, Alnarra wondered from shattered thought to disillusioned memory. Each doorway leading to another key event in her life, each one marked from the thousands of times she had visited them before, clinging desperately to the shade inside.
Her days living in the world since his passing had become increasingly turbulent. She tried to spread her wings, to learn to fly again but each time she felt as if they were snipped, her feathers torn from her fragile state. Now as her last attempt at happiness had ended with the burning of the one place she considered most sacred, Alnarra had become a recluse even within her own mind.
Clutching her knees sitting in the corner of her fragment memories and dreams the druidess wept quietly to herself. The images here were all of her own invention, her own design. It was her shelter, her breeze, her whim which made the world of her own mind operate, yet even now she had no control.
A small light drifted over the druidess, her eyes not drawn to it, her vision blurred as thousands of thoughts seemed to blind her. “Wake up little one… speak to me” a soft and calming voice .said. causing Alnarra to chuckle slightly shaking her head.
"Why am I hear?" Alnarra responded quietly, gripping at her knees.
"Because you choose to be child, Because you never leave here"
"I just wanted to be happy… I wanted to move on"
"Did you? Are you sure that is what you truly seek? You are here because you never left"
Another familiar voice joined in with the source of light, a certain confidence in it, one Alnarra had learned to trust. “Lynx…. You know what this is really about… This isn’t about the house burning down… this isn’t about becoming a doctor… this isn’t even about the letter. It is about the same struggle you have been having since Tal and Myr left us and you know it”
"You have chosen never to leave this place child," her mind warped to a scene that she dreaded. A scene that she relived every night, every waking hour trying to hide from. Herself and her husband standing in front of the dead corpses of her children.
"I don’t want to be here," Alnarra whispered quietly, turning her head away, but it seemed no matter which way she tried to look her vision could only see that moment fixed in time. The sentinel raising the sheet to reveal the mangled corpse of her first son, brutalized and destroyed by the ravages of the Silithid army.
"But you are Always here Alnarra… you never leave, There is no need to lie to me Alnarra I sat by you each night, I know that even until my death you wept for our children. That even I could never console you truly." the soft chuckle of her late husband followed, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder as she stared into the corpses, even past them an abyss that could never be filled.
"I can never replace them Veral, never replace you…" she said softly, her left hand going to rest on the one he had place on her shoulder, squeezing at it gently.
"You are not replacing me Alnarra, and you are not replacing them. But it would pain me deeply to see you like this just as it pains her…"
Alnarra simply shook her head “I will never abandon you Veraldan… never, and I won’t forsake our children”
"My Sweet Lynx, You can not push people so readily away. I know you are scared… I know you don’t want to change the way things are… but you can not stay here. Not just for me, but for our Children… How do you think they would feel knowing their mother weeps at their grave rather then seeing the ones she loved."
"I can’t… I can never love them like I could love you or our children… I can’t… I can never let someone that close again."
"You can love them like that and More my sweet Lynx, I have seen your bright smile, your happy cheer, I know your thoughts when she walks in the room better then perhaps even you yourself know them. It is ok… you can be happy once more."
"She will betray me, just as…"
"Child," the soft and soothing voice called out to her once more, the light brightening, "The path before you is filled with the future, but you can never walk that path if you do not allow yourself to see it. You have let doubt and worry cloud your path, but you must see past the fog"
"Stop thinking with your loins Lynx, you know that this time that isn’t what it’s about… you know this time is different. Don’t be afraid My lovely lynx."
"I…" The Druidess Store longingly, seeing not the image of her children, but a path filled with dense haze and fog, she bit her lip… still unsure, still not ready. Perhaps a voice in the darkness, in the haze, could wake her
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